Monday, September 21, 2009

Book Review : Demon in the Freezer

Demon in the Freezer Richard Preston This book was ultimately extremely captivating! Before reading this book, I was very and did not know what I had gotten myself into by signing up for this SoCo (mainly because of the amount of books that we were assigned). However as soon as I started reading the book, I was unable to put it down! The style with which Preston writes makes the book seem a lot less like it is about actual real life events, and it also makes the book seem a lot deeper than just a statement of a timeline of events. One of the more confusing parts of the book, in my opinion, was the fact that the book started out as more of a description of a case of anthrax. While reading the book, I never felt like Preston ever really went back to the original story line and completed it. Otherwise, the book created a well depicted, generalized storyline of smallpox, its history, and its eradication. I felt like reading this book was definitely a better introduction to smallpox than if I was just given straight facts. One of the most interesting parts of the book to me was the part about the eradication. Before signing up for this class, I had heard of smallpox, but I had never really considered what exactly happened to it or felt the urge to look into whether it was still prevalent in today’s world. However, after reading this book, an entire world of eradication and the possibilities of eradicating other diseases were opened up to me. Overall I really enjoyed this book, and I felt like it made me very excited for soco.